Postal Service readies for its busiest time of year

Saturday

Nov 24, 2012 at 10:27 PM

The U.S. Postal Service expects to deliver 17.9 billion cards, letters and packages between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve.

Katie UrbaszewskiStaff Writer

The U.S. Postal Service expects to deliver 17.9 billion cards, letters and packages between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve.Email and online shopping has been steadily decreasing holiday mail volumes for years. In 2008, the Postal Service delivered about 19 billion items.“There has been a 5 to 7 percent decline in mail volume over the past five years,” said McKinney Boyd, spokesman for the Postal Service in Louisiana. “More and more people are shipping holiday notes and cards online. More and more people are ordering packages online.”Still, the service will process about 560 million pieces of mail a day, and 242 million customers will visit a post office, during the holidays.Officials expect Dec. 17 to be the busiest day, when more than 655 million pieces of mail are expected to be processed compared to 538 million on an average day, officials said. The busiest delivery day for letters will be Dec. 19, and the busiest day for packages will be Dec. 20.“It can be chaotic,” said Patricia Greene, the Thibodaux post office's acting postmaster. “At the same time, it can be very joyful. You have people mailing to their loved ones, and they share that information with the clerk sometimes.”Greene said her office also makes an effort to respond to letters addressed to Santa Claus.The Postal Service's “Letters From Santa” program allows anyone to mail a letter to their child “From Santa,” postmarked from the North Pole. Here's how:Write a letter to your child and sign it “From Santa.”Insert the letter into an envelope addressed to your child with this return address: Santa, North Pole.Attach a first-class stamp to the envelope.Place the envelope into a larger one with appropriate postage. Address the larger envelope to North Pole Postmark; Postmaster; 4141 Postmark Dr.; Anchorage, AK 99530-9998.